Politics was something that I'd never considered being a part of.

I often joke about how politics ‘chose me’ rather than the other way around - but as a gay, working-class, neurodivergent, care-leaver I guess I didn’t have much of a choice when faced with institutionalised inequality.

My drive to stand up for those without a voice comes from my own experience of complete voicelessness. My determination to fight for a vision of a better society is because I want to leave the world in a better place than I found it.

“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” — Mahatma Gandhi

contact

If you’d like to report something, suggest an idea, or otherwise contact me for assistance in a community campaign, please feel free to get in touch.
I am available for consultation, and I’m happy to help you with your ideas.

For Green Party work, please see the contact details on the SEEGP website.

// biography

So then, you’re curious enough to have a look at who I am, what I’ve done, and what I stand for.
I’ll do what I can to explain it for you.

As is usual with these kinds of stories, for me it all began in college…

south essex college student union

While I was at University, a friend told me how he was joining the Students' Union and that they could do with some help in organising some events. I’d never even heard of it before that first conversation, and I had no clue what it was or what it was for. After a few lengthy conversations where it was thoroughly explained to me, I put my name on the election form to stand as the Union’s first LGBT+ Officer, and my involvement in community politics began.

I was elected to the Union in November 2014, and initially, my remit was to represent, empower, and support all of the college’s LGBT+ Students - a role I took incredibly seriously given the rife homophobia and intolerance I experienced myself in the institution.

Shortly after stepping into the post, I formed an LGBT+ Students Group, a peer-to-peer support group dedicated to creating a safe space for LGBT+ students to express themselves and socialise in a non-pressured and safe environment.

I went on to create the institutions' first LGBT+ Awareness Week (later renamed the LGBT+ Celebration Week) which sought to tackle the problems of homophobia at source in what proved to be an initially-unpopular but latterly-embraced series of multi-campus presentations and events. In that project, I visited every classroom annually explaining the history of the LGBT+ movement, and the unseen ramifications of abusive language it is so often subject to. Explaining to room upon room of diverse 16-21-year-old students the history of the queer community, the challenges it has faced over time, and what is still left to achieve in terms of equality was a real step forward for the institution.

Following that work, both students and staff experienced a notable drop in the incidence of homophobia, and the events I put in place during that time survive in the organisation today as an important part of the wider cultural education of the student populous, and as a core signal of inclusivity and acceptance towards its LGBT+ students.

On my proven commitment and achievements, I went on to win two further elections (2015, & 2016) to the Union’s executive in this same role, and over time my involvement in the Union’s wider work also expanded.

national union of students

I'd always been an avid follower of current events, and I considered myself to be fairly well-briefed on international and domestic goings-on, so when the opportunity arose whereby I could extend my experience beyond my own student union and become a delegate at the 2015 National Union of Students (NUS) conference, I jumped at the opportunity.

What happened over those three days in Liverpool changed my political aspect entirely.

I learnt many things at that first NUS conference. I was shown that politics wasn't something dictated to us by people who "know better." I learnt how real change is almost always fought and won by grassroots networks of communities finally deciding not to take it anymore. I leant how important it is that young people take a stand in Politics. Most importantly, I learnt the fundamentals of what an empowered and mobilised group of people was, and what it could achieve.

After my first NUS conference, I (with a few others) went on to completely redraft the Student Union's constitution and redefine the organisation’s operation. We led hosts of campaigns aimed at engaging students in politics and local issues, and we gave countless talks on the benefits of unionisation and mass-movements. We significantly increased the number of elected officers on the Union, and we won successive fights in ensuring that we were at the table of every important meeting representing Student's interests.

My Student Union involvement grew and grew, and eventually, I was the breathing embodiment of the union and the all-signing-all-dancing poster boy of the college. At one stage, following the natural ebb-and-flow of leaving students, I was the only officer left on the executive and administrated the Union singlehandedly. Despite this, I continued to stand up for the thousands of students at all three campuses on all manner of issues.

I went on to additionally attend the 2016 NUS Conference in Brighton, where I was engaged in several LGBT+ policy campaigns, various on-the-floor motion debates, and a few NEC election campaigns.

national politics

In early 2015, I was becoming more enraged at and engaged in national politics, and I felt it was about time I nailed my newly-defined socialist colours to the metaphorical mast.

My parents were staunchly Labour 'Blairites', and like so many others of my generation I grew up feeling that Labour was no longer the embodiment of radical working-class social reform it once was. New Labour was the antithesis of the socialist appeal of the party, and I never had faith in its capability to be forward-thinking, honest, or fair. Labour was centre-right, and even though I was previously an apolitical student union representative, I knew that I was considerably more left-wing than what they had to offer.

I certainly wasn't a Tory; the thought didn’t even register as a consideration.

I was previously sympathetic to the Liberal Democrats but they lost my confidence the moment they entered a coalition government with the Conservatives. Simply, they lied to students like me about tuition fees, they failed to hold the Tories to account on life-and-death issues, and they failed in standing up as the self-ascribed party of principle.

My burgeoning concern for the need for radical social reform combined with my deep-rooted affection for the environment left me with an obvious choice.
I joined the Green Party on the 20th January 2015 shortly after my student finance hit my bank account, and I’ve never questioned my membership since.

Because of other priorities and commitments, I had no active involvement in the Green Party until 2017.

estuary fringe festival

In December 2015, I signed up to volunteer with a fledgeling underground ‘subversive’ arts organisation; the Estuary Fringe. My role was to look after the photographic works.

Exhibition of photographic works, Estuary Fringe Pop-Up 2015.

Half protest - half pisstake, the Estuary Fringe has a long history in Southend as the town’s incendiary art provocateurs.

Formed in 2013 by local artist John Bulley in response to the elitism shown by Southend’s established art scene, the Estuary Fringe’s core objective was to showcase the heaps of talent in the homegrown artists long overlooked by the town’s ‘snobbish’ arts institutions.

When I joined the EF in late 2015, the group had already been running a much-loved series of bi-monthly poetry and spoken word events, a well-known summer festival of free-to-exhibit pop-up galleries, and fostering a burgeoning street-art and graffiti scene.

Initially, I joined the Estuary Fringe as their Curator of Photography, responsible for organising, preparing, and displaying all of the photographic works submitted to the festival’s winter pop-up gallery space. The EF had a policy of displaying ANY and ALL artworks submitted for exhibition, regardless of substance or content, and I absolutely loved the anarchistic ‘come have a go’ nature of it. I met and became friends with many of the town’s prominent artists, and have worked as an artist myself in collaboration with a great patchwork of creatives ever since.

Estuary Fringe’s ‘PaintFest’ 2017, Southend High St.

I continued my involvement with the Estuary Fringe, later becoming a production coordinator for the whole festival in 2016, overseeing the design, digital marketing, and publicity for the festival and its all of its many events.

In 2017, securing major sponsorship from Southend BID, the Estuary Fringe launched a full-scale festival of events, featuring live street art, musical concerts, film screenings, poetry performances, cabaret, and Southend’s first Art Trail. The 2017 Festival attracted thousands of visitors and put Southend firmly on the map as a town of significant cultural contribution.

In 2017, I left my University course due to ill mental health following a prolonged period of harassment and victimisation from a member of staff.

My Union role had made me somewhat of a target, and it was evident I was an infuriating thorn in the side of the university management. Union work and volunteering outside of coursework impeded my studies, and I soon realised that the university course was second to my other commitments and no longer productive or enjoyable.
I had no compelling reason to stay.

I didn't mind leaving behind the essays, the crippling deadlines, and the constant torturous harassment of lecturers, but something that I did deeply miss upon leaving University was the satisfaction that came with by Union role; the sense that I was helping others. For several months afterwards, an inescapable void developed in my life whereby I couldn't satisfy the need to be 'doing something worthwhile.'

south east essex green party // 2017-18

Shortly after leaving University, I started to attend my local Green Party branch meetings in hope that I might find what I was looking for. - Boy, did I find it.

2018 Green Party local elections team, Southend-on-Sea.

I joined the committee of the South East Essex Green Party at the AGM of September 2017 as the Press Officer, the Communications Officer, and as the Young Greens Officer. Taking on the responsibilities and duties of three separate officer roles was not something I took lightly, but I loved it.

In these roles, I worked with other members in radically reshaping the local party into a viable electoral force. Previously, the branch had been subject to disorganisation, infighting, and a lack of engagement from members. Applying the skills I had learnt from the NUS and SECSU, I began developing the local branch into a connected, organised campaign team.

We took a stand on issues we felt passionate about, we supported grassroots community campaigns, and we slowly started to build our movement locally. Representatives of the local branch started to attend regional meetings, and I joined another local campaigner in travelling through the famous 2018 snowstorm to the national party's Spring Conference in Bournemouth.

For me, the conference in Bournemouth was like a homecoming; it felt oddly familiar. It was a reinvigoration of those same passions I felt when I attended the NUS conferences - I felt like I was helping to mobilise a movement again. I was surrounded by likeminded individuals who shared the same concerns, interests, and determination to enact actual and meaningful change, and that enthusiasm and optimism were contagious.

I undertook every training session available whilst at the conference, and networked more than I ever had previously. Whilst there, I decided to relight the other big political passion in my life; LGBT+ activism. For years, my entire political sphere had been dominated by one topic, and I felt like if I had anything to offer to the national party, it would be this. Following a vote, I became a Non-Portfolio (advisory) member of the LGBTIQA+ Greens Committee, and I began working with that group in drafting, proposing, and campaigning for the party’s groundbreaking gender and sexual identity policies.

In May 2018, the South East Essex Green Party stood eight candidates in the Local Elections, with myself standing as the prospective representative for St Luke's Ward. Shortly afterwards I was elected as the Coordinator/Chair of the South East Essex Green Party, at the EGM of May 2018.

In that same year, we doubled the number of officers on our committee, entirely redrafted our local party's constitution, and we went on to win a landmark victory against the proposed construction of a £55M museum to be built on geologically unstable green-belt land on the Southend Cliffs.

In October 2018, I travelled to Bristol for the larger Green Party Autumn conference. I spent much of the weekend networking with delegates from all across the countries, participating in extended election and branch management training, and also discussing and updating the party’s core policies.

I was fortunate enough to be re-elected as a Non-Portfolio (advisory) member of the LGBTIQA+ Greens committee, and much of the policy discussions I participated in at that conference was around LGBT+ representation and liberation.

2018 ended with a flurry of hard cross-county campaigning.

In November, the branch raised the alarm when Essex County Council earmarked a third (25 out of 74) of its public Libraries for permanent closure to save costs. Working with our Green Party councillors in Witham and Hullbridge, we started a petition and helped form initial resistance to the plans, which later galvanised around the cross-party S.O.L.E. campaign. We joined S.O.L.E. in their mass demonstrations in Chelmsford and pressured ECC into eventually dropping the plans some months later.

At the 2019 “People’s Vote” (EU) Protest March, London.

Also in November, at the Eastern Region Green Party AGM held in Norwich, on behalf of the SEE branch I joined members and councillors from across Essex and Suffolk in unanimously condemning the proposals for the Lower Thames Crossing. Citing the inexcusable increase in air pollution and inherent destruction of green belt and natural habitat, we secured a motion of regional agreement against the £6bn LTC scheme.

The year ended with the local branch launching a campaign against the Fossetts Farm development proposals. The Greens have long been the sole opposition in the town to the council’s plans to build a football stadium and associated training complex on the green belt agricultural land to the north of the town, but in early December, we launched a refreshed campaign against the plans for a proposed retail park and housing scheme adjacent that would likely lend the stadium planning precedent.

southend pride festival

In late 2017, following the success of the Estuary Fringe Festival, I was invited to an early ‘ideas’ meeting by fellow local campaigner Dan Turpin. Dan wanted to form a team to resurrect the Southend LGBT+ Pride, which at the time was last held in 2003.

Southend Pride Planning Committee - Early 2018

Initially, Estuary Fringe’s John Bulley and I were joined by representatives of Southend UNISON and Transpire, and following lengthy deliberations, a plan was hatched.

I was brought into discussions for my experience with the Estuary Fringe, the Green Party, and the good relationship I had with the owners of The Cliff, Southend’s only LGBT+ venue at the time.

Committed to seeing the Pride return to its former glory, I was happily appointed as head of Media and Marketing and using my skills began publicising the festival’s return.

The early planning committee soon fleshed out a full summary of proposed events, fundraising began, and we eventually secured a bid for National Lottery funding. Directing a team of designers, I introduced a full suite of graphics and brand identity for the festival, and we went on to deliver the 2018 festival that summer.

Ahead of the formation of the July 2018 Southend Pride Parade.

The festival comprised LGBT+ themed poetry evenings, film screenings, social events, and comedy nights, and culminated in a march and village fete-style festival in Warrior Square in central Southend.

Personally leading ahead of a march of over 1,000 people and the event attracting a crowd of over 4,500, the event was a roaring success, and one of the proudest achievements of my community work to date.

I became Vice-Chair of Southend Pride shortly after the 2018 events, and we began planning of the 2019 festival.

We built on the success of the 2018 iteration, bringing in a more professional team structure and charity-style operation. We began year-round fundraising and community events, and even ran a smaller ‘Winter Pride’ event in February 2019.

Despite not having National Lottery financing for the main 2019 summer festival, we again secured donated funding, community support, and delivered another equally-successful festival to great public acclaim.

Ahead of the formation of the July 2019 Southend Pride Parade

These annually-recurring events are now widely regarded as one of the brightest highlights on the town’s social calendar and have galvanised public support for the local LGBTIQA+ community. Through the many pressure campaigns, events, and fundraisers we ran, the organisation now forms a key part of local LGBTIQA+ campaigning in South Essex and often helps local government, third-sector organisations, and businesses in promoting equality. Several spinoff initiatives have been formed from Southend Pride’s success, and continue to provide funding, peer support, and celebration of the town’s LGBTIQA+ community.

I stood down as Vice-Chair of Southend Pride in August 2019 to focus on other projects.

the railway hotel, southend

Following six months of transitional planning, in June 2019 it was publicly announced that I was appointed as the General Manager of The Railway Hotel, Southend.

The Railway Hotel 2019, Landlords and Management.

An internationally recognised live music venue in its own right, and widely acknowledged as the epicentre of Southend’s cultural creative scene, The Railway Hotel had been a town institution for decades. I’d enjoyed it as a customer for many years myself.

Known as the loudest pub in town, the Railway hosted a wide diversity of original live music every day of the week, and with its award-winning Vegan menu, it was proudly one of the quirkiest and most-loved public houses in town.

Following financial difficulties, the pub was faced with closure in late 2018. Thanks to a crowdfunding initiative organised by the pub’s regulars, the business was given a stay of execution, and in the following months, I was approached by the Pub’s landlords with an offer to take over the daily responsibility of managing the business.

With previous hospitality industry experience, and leaving a career in business management/auditing/sales, to come to this role, I quickly set about building on the good foundations the pub had and remedying those parts not productive. We tackled the company’s entrenched issues head-on, successfully bringing the company out of debt in early 2020. Slowly, the business retained balance, and we set about instigating the long-overdue modernisation and the renovations required of such an old building. At nearly 150 years old, the building still features many original Victorian features, such as its original mosaic tiling, parquet flooring, and decorative plasterworks. The original English Oak bartop was still in situ, with all its glorious untouched imperfections amassed over a century-and-a-half of entertaining.

The Railway Hotel, Southend - August 2020.

With a commitment to retain the pub’s ethos as an inclusive, vegan, and ethical business, we grew the pub’s existing customer base, over time reintroducing previously lost products and services. We continued the ‘suspended meals’ scheme, which thanks to the generosity of our customers, enabled us to feed over a thousand free hot meals to the town’s homeless community. We kept the live music playing, enabling a wealth of amateur and professional musicians of all genres to perform to eclectic crowds of patrons.

Unfortunately due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a government-mandated closure of hospitality venues came into effect in early 2020, and this lasting closure meant that the pub faced a terminal impact on trading.

Despite the pandemic, during the COVID-19 closure, we set about on an ambitious schedule of repairs, restoration, and redecoration work that lasted for most of the summer months of 2020. With help from local artist John Bulley, the ground-floor exterior of the building was given a historically sensitive refurbishment, the interior bar floors were rejuvenated, and essential COVID-compliant safety measures were installed.

Despite this, facing untradable circumstances and little help from the government or brewery, the business sadly announced insolvency in April 2021 and ceased trading.

south east essex green party // 2019 -

Continuing my stewardship of the South East Essex Green Party, 2019 saw new challenges and a new chapter for the local branch. Three different elections to face in one year, and more steps were taken towards electing the first-ever Green to Southend Council.

On the local election campaign trail, early 2019.

In early 2019, the branch stood a full slate of 17 candidates for the Southend local council elections in May. From Carers to University Lecturers, our candidates were the strongest and most diverse team the branch had fielded to date.

I once again stood as the Green candidate in St Luke’s ward in this local election.

We stood on a refreshed manifesto, bringing bold and radical ideas to the table on the doorstep, and at hustings. We improved upon our skills and distilled our election strategy to good effect. We campaigned in more areas and on more issues than before, and we gained additional votes from new supporters as a result.

We engaged many voters who had become tired of the same old empty promises from the other parties, and we pressured other candidates into reevaluating the strength of their own environmental promises. We came within 200 votes of winning our first seat on Southend Council in Kursaal Ward, securing a mightily strong second place in a toughly-fought race.

Members of the local branch with Keith Taylor MEP in Southend.

Immediately off the back of our local election success, our team mobilised into campaigning in the 2019 European Parliamentary (EU) elections, held three weeks later.

As the first European Parliamentary election after the UK’s EU (“Brexit”) referendum in 2016, this election was hard-fought by a large number of candidates from many parties. As the candidates represented a much larger multi-county geographic constituency, our team worked with branches across East Anglia in coordinating our efforts.

We knew that campaigning for a ‘remain’ party in 58.1% ‘leave’ Southend would be fraught with difficulties. Thanks to the hard work put in by our members and supporters, we achieved the third-highest vote share in Southend with 5,214 votes, as the second-highest “remain” party. This meant that despite the 33.23% overall turnout, we achieved a higher number of Green votes in that election than either Labour or the Conservatives. Thanks to the ‘party list’ proportional representation system, as the Greens achieved 12.67% of the votes across the East of England, Dr Catherine Rowett was elected to the EU parliament as our representative.

with Jonathan Bartley, Co-Leader of the Green Party

In early 2019, a local contingent for the new ‘Extinction Rebellion’ movement was formed in Southend. As prominent environmentalists, many local Green Party figures, including myself, were invited and attended these first few meetings. I participated in many of XR’s events, and in April I attended the group’s now-infamous non-violent ‘Tell The Truth’ disruption in central London. I was sat just a few feet from the group’s iconic pink boat in the middle of Oxford Circus, playing my small part in one of the biggest environmentalist protests in history.

At the South East Essex Green Party AGM in October 2019, I was re-elected as the local branch Coordinator for my second term.

In October 2019, I travelled (via carpool in TESLA electric car, no less!) to Green Party Autumn Conference in Newport, Wales. Representing the South East Essex branch and the LGBTIQA+ Greens committee, I supported several successful policy motions, participated in discussion workshops, and voted by proxy on behalf of several absent members. At that conference, I was again elected as a Non-Portfolio (advisory) member of the LGBTIQA+ Greens committee, for the third time.

Just a few days into 2020, the branch joined local Extinction Rebellion campaigners in Southend High Street in protesting the recent increase in nighttime flights from Southend Airport. We used this opportunity to demand that there be a considerable reduction in the highly-polluting aviation operations, citing the recent wildfires in Australia caused by global warming, and additionally highlighted the deeply-worrying increase in air pollution in the town.

at the XR Airport demonstration, Southend High St.

I spent much of early 2020 planning and organising the first-ever Southend GreenFest, an ambitious two-day conference of speakers, interactive workshops, eco-stalls, and live music to be held at the Railway Hotel in March. Attended by high profile Greens such as Deputy Leader of the Green Party Amelia Womack, Catherine Rowett MEP, Caroline Russel AM, and Benali Hamdache, the event was well-attended by both members and the general public.

A plethora of workshops and talks were organised, on a wide range of multidisciplinary topics; from permaculture and tree management to green energy and Universal Basic Income. I too delivered a 1.5hr presentation on the concept of a Circular Economy and the benefits of reinventing our linear economy into an infinitely-sustainable zero-waste society. All of the talks and speeches are available to watch on the South East Essex Green Party YouTube channel.

Amelia Womack, opening the Southend Green Party office.

Coinciding with the GreenFest weekend was the official opening of the Southend branch’s first full-time office, located on the upper floor of the Railway Hotel. This new office marked a step-change in resources for the local branch, and the opening by Amelia Womack signalled the national party’s commitment to supporting the branch in its campaign work in the town.

Shortly after the success of the GreenFest event, the country was placed into (the first of many) lockdown restrictions due to the worsening COVID-19 pandemic. The branch was due to build on the electoral achievements of the previous year in the local elections due to be held in May that year, by again standing a full slate of candidates. As the local elections were postponed, the branch redeployed our resources into helping our community through the pandemic.

As soon as the guidance allowed, I used my government-permitted outdoor exercise time productively by joining our volunteers in helping clean the streets of the rife litter that had accumulated. This community cleanup effort led to our branch to make a series of public calls for more considerate PPE disposal by the public, following reports of a shocking increase in medical waste found discarded in our natural areas.

at the ‘Save Southchurch Park East’ demonstration.

Our first major campaign of 2020 came in the form of launching a petition to prevent the loss of parkland in Southchurch Park East after it was revealed that the council intended to increase the size of the surface car park, introducing a new solid tarmac covering and new coach parking facilities. This campaign led to a petition signed by thousands of residents and subsequent demonstrations. As well as the obvious impact upon local wildlife, we argued the environmental cost of increasing parking provision in a time of climate crisis, and also the impact the new non-porous surface (where previously there was porous gravel) would have on a surrounding residential area already prone to flooding.

Throughout 2020, the local branch campaigned on various topics, from challenging the council over its deeply unambitious tree-planting policy, to supporting the council in its aim to introduce a compulsory Landlord Licensing scheme.

At the South East Essex Green Party AGM in September (held online due to the pandemic), I was re-elected to serve a third term as the Coordinator of the local branch; my fourth on the committee of the local party.

In December 2020, concerning new data from the Centre for Cities was published showing that air pollution had returned to, and exceeded, pre-pandemic levels in Southend. On this, the branch published an ultimatum to the responsible town councillors, explaining how and why the problem had worsened, and calling out the council’s inaction on an issue that has and will continue to impact the health of residents.

Another year, another lockdown; the beginning of 2021 saw a continuation of much of 2020’s problems. In the first few months of 2021, I dealt firsthand with removing medically false COVID conspiracy stickers placed on the seafront, issued a statement cautioning Southend Council against plans to rely on corporate sponsorship to fund the borough’s parks, and challenged the council over their unambitious budget and skewed priorities.

Following the stabbing of local teenager Luke Bellfield in early 2021, I challenged the council’s response to the incident in the local press, stating that their planned response (the installation of 40 new CCTV cameras) was not enough to make the residents of the town feel safe; adding that proactive policing alongside civic community outreach is what’s required to deal with the core issues behind why so many teenagers feel it’s necessary to deal drugs and carry 14-inch knives on our streets.

In March 2021, the SEE branch announced its full-slate of 19 candidates for the postponed 2020 elections now being held in May 2021. The Green Party’s candidates were the brightest and most dynamic set of candidates fielded to date, bringing in individuals from all walks of life; from business-people to frontline NHS health workers. I was selected to represent the Chalkwell ward in these elections. During the election campaign, the branch challenged climate-complacent councillors from all parties on their environmental records, leafleted thousands of homes across the borough highlighting the reality and likely impacts of the climate crisis, and raising a myriad of local issues on residents’ behalf. Despite a campaign hampered by covid restrictions, the branch returned one of its best election results to date, increasing our vote share from the election previous to amass over eight per cent of total votes across the town.

In the weeks following the election, the branch launched a petition against the proposed loss of green belt land to the north of the town to new housing estates, and we additionally launched an online survey of residents’ views.

who knows what the future holds for us?

The saying goes; If you’re not angry, you’re not paying adequate attention.

I expect that if you’ve made it to the end of reading about my community work over the last decade, then you might just feel as passionately as I do about bettering our communities through proactive citizenship. Perhaps you should consider getting involved in starting, fixing, or fighting for something.

There’s always a cause to fight for and always an injustice to put right.
There’s still a lot of work to do.